Color Blind
by Venu3374
Summary: After several wars and far too many dead friends, a slightly-deranged Harry hatches a plan to get back everything he's lost. Eventually H/Hr, Manipulative but Not Evil Dumbledore.
1. Chapter 1

A/N: So I started writing this a while ago just for kicks, but my life became incredibly busy and it (along with TLTU) fell by the wayside. I'm looking to pick up writing again, and this was the idea that seemed to flow best. Enjoy!

P.S. Obviously, I do not own Harry Potter.

" _It was supposed to be our 'Great War', the 'Final Battle'. In our naivete we assumed that Voldemort was the source of the problem. How wrong we were. Voldemort was nothing more than a symptom, and with him gone the blinders were ripped from our eyes. Nothing had really changed beyond the surface, and we still lived in a world where birth mattered infinitely more than ability. Looking back, I think that realization might be what ultimately set me on my path."_

 _-Excerpt from 'Falling from Grace' by Harry James Potter. Banned by the British Ministry of Magic in 2005_

' _I wonder who decided dark wizards should live in dark, forbidding lairs?'_ Green eyes traveled over polished redwood and dark marble. ' _Although the floor_ _ **is**_ _covered in blood, though that's on purpose.'_

"Harry?" The familiar voice pulled his attention from the quivering form on the table in front of him.

"'Mione!?" He turned to see his oldest friend standing in the door to the hall, a dark blue pantsuit giving her a professional air. He was several steps towards her before he saw the raised eyebrow and glanced down.

"Oh, um…" He flushed as brown eyes traveled over slacks and a green button-down nearly soaked in blood. A quick burst of magic, saturated with his will but too ill-defined to be called a real spell, exploded from his body and obliterated the blood to leave him clean. Quick steps carried him to Hermione and he caught her up in an exuberant hug.

"It's good to see you too!" She said laughing when he finally set her on her feet and moved back to look her over. For a moment he simply drank in the sight of her, eyes the same brown he'd first seen nearly two decades ago and hair that still refused to bow even in the slightest to any effort to contain it.

"You look good." There was a whole multitude held in that simple statement. It had been nearly an entire year since he'd last laid eyes on her, and she'd been just shy of a wreck then. They'd both taken Luna's death badly, but for Hermione there was an added component of guilt laid on top of the sorrow. Letting Nott live had been her call, and as a result she blamed herself for his later actions. Hermione gave him a small honest smile tinged with sadness.

"So what was so important that you had to pull me all the way back from Sydney?" She asked, the playful tone in her question a bit forced.

"You were in Australia!?" Harry asked incredulously before giving a small shrug. "Makes sense I guess, it wasn't hit nearly as bad as we were…."

"They were nearly untouched, honestly. The aboriginal Shamans live in such remote areas that nobody really bothered with them, and their magical traditions are fascinating." She launched into a description of the differences between British and Shamanic magics at a mile a minute.

Harry smiled, a soft curling of the corners of his mouth so different from the manic grins that so often plagued him. Hearing Hermione wax poetic on the mysteries of obscure magic was like seeing a sliver of the little girl he'd known so long ago, and it only stiffened his resolve more.

"As interesting as my trip was though, I don't think you called me back here to discuss my travels."

"No, i didn't." A wide smile showing perhaps more teeth than was strictly conventional stretched Harry's mouth. "I've finished a project!" He exclaimed with air of a child completing their first styrofoam solar system for a science class, his tone completely at odds with Hermione's suddenly wary look. "Oh come on, I'm not that bad." Harry stated with a small pout.

"Harry, the last time you said 'I've finished a project' it turned out to be a blood ritual that was only technically legal because it was forgotten before Britain was a country. This same ritual managed to make my hair glow for nearly a month and cost you your ability to feel fear."

"I still say that was a benefit, not a cost." Harry muttered.

"Fear is a rational response that helps you avoid dangerous circumstances, and you sacrificed it for something you could have gotten just as easily through practice."

"The ability to sense magic accurately takes most people an average of 2-3 decades Hermione, time I didn't have to wait. Besides, without that ability I wouldn't have been able to finish this project." He gestured grandly to the lines of blood covering ⅔ of the hall.

"And what exactly **is** this project?" She asked with a sigh. "And why is there a naked man tied to the table?" This seemed to pull Harry for a loop as if he'd forgotten the nearly-delirious man he'd been tending to.

"Proving the anthropic principle, and he's a volunteer."

She raised an eyebrow. "A _volunteer_?"

"Well, maybe an unwilling volunteer." Harry admitted.

"Also known as a victim."

"You might be right, but to be fair he's also a veeeery bad man. And I really did need someone's blood."

Letting the matter drop for the moment Hermione took a closer look at the diagram. The shape of the runes had the characteristic infuriatingly familiar structure without actually being readable that all blood runes shared, and the circle was bigger than any blood magic circle she'd ever seen before.

"So what exactly does blood magic have to do with obscure philosophical theories about the nature of the universe?" She shivered slightly as Harry's smile widened.

"Well you can't take a journey without a destination, right?" Without waiting for an answer he moved to a section of runes that created their own contained sub-circle within the larger array and pulsed a stream of magic into it. The runes glowed a deep sullen red that seemed to suck the light from the hallway and leave behind a series of interconnected glowing spots that floated in the air. Harry pointed to one of the spots several links from the center of the strange cluster.

"We're here, see?" The light pulsed. "Nice, habitable universe. Good constants and everything, but _here_." The lights shifted and another spot pulsed. "No good. Elementary charge is different amongst other things and the whole universe is basically chaos for us." More spots pulsed as Harry spouted a litany of problems.

" _Uninhabitable earth, different speed of light in a vacuum, don't know what happened here but the earth is molten…_ " Fully ⅔ of the lights pulsed and were rejected before he turned back to Hermione. "See, most of these are useless."

"Harry" Hermione croaked as she finally found her voice. "Are you saying those are _other universes?"_ He beamed.

"Yup. Just the closest right now, didn't want to power up the whole ring and the farther out you go the more juice you need."

"Why? _How_?" His earlier words filtered through the currently stalled corridors of her mind. "Journey…" She looked down at the bloody array with new understanding. "You're trying to connect them. You're going to make a doorway."

"You always were the smartest person I've ever met." Harry said with a smile as he leaned down to slightly alter a rune.

Blood magic was unique among the different arcane branches because of its ability to create connections. Little vestiges of the art had survived in Magical Britain even under the corrupt and censorious ministry in the form of Unbreakable Vows and several medical spells. Harry (spurred on perhaps by the vaunted 'blood wards' Dumbledore had always put so much faith in or possibly an urge to understand how his mother had protected him with her very death) had both revived and advanced the art beyond what anyone could have predicted. This, though….this was so far beyond what she'd even thought was possible that she was having trouble processing. A disturbing thought penetrated the fog and she looked sharply at her oldest friend.

"Why Harry? Why are you trying to reach other worlds?"

"To solve the causal loop problem of course." She'd half expected the answer but that didn't make it any easier to hear.

"Harry, you can't go back in time." His laugh had a hint of madness to it.

"Well you can, but not very far and you can't violate causality without causing a paradox. At least in this universe. But if you were to jump to _another_ universe there'd be no problem. They're causally distinct from one another, at least until somebody breaches them, so extra-universal influences don't violate causality." He seemed to dim slightly as the smile slipped from his face.

"I'm tired 'Mione. Voldemort was supposed to be our 'Great War' but we learned too many bad habits when we were young, and by the time we learned that you had to take _**DECISIVE ACTION"**_ Harry took a deep breath and lowered his voice from the brief outburst. "By the time we learned how the world really worked too many had already died, and too few were left. There's nothing we can do about it now, but I found another universe. One nearly identical to ours where we could have a fresh start."

"And what?" Hermione asked sharply. "We just abandon everything we build here? Betray everyone who depends on us?"

"There's no one _left_ to betray, nothing left to abandon." Harry retorted, his voice biting. "Do you know how many of the people from our Hogwarts class are still alive? Six. I checked last year, and that number includes the three who transferred out after the basilisk second year. As for everything we built?" He gestured at the hall around them. "You haven't even been in the country for almost a year, and we both know I'm more a liability than an asset to what's left of our community these days. Nobody wants the 'Dark-Wizard-Who-Lived' around, even if I've never used "dark" magic against them specifically. Face it, this world gets on fine without us."

Half-realized fears and hopes warred across Hermione's face as she stared at Harry, memories of friends both long gone and newly lost pushing her towards agreeing while fears, perfectly _legitimate_ fears, tried to hold her back. She was more than familiar with the amount of blood in a human body and there was more here than a single person could have provided. Harry was becoming more and more callous as the years went by, even by her own warped standards, and she was genuinely worried about what he might unleash if he managed to succeed. They'd had no idea how much darkness lay in his heart when they were younger. With it now so close to the surface unleashing him on the relatively peaceful era before their fight with Voldemort would be like dropping a swarm of manticores on them.

' _Come to think of it, I'm pretty sure that's_ _ **exactly**_ _the kind of thing Harry would actually do. Morgana only knows where he'd get the manticores from though….'_

"How would it even work Harry?" She ran a hand through the unruly brambles she called hair and let out a sigh. "You wouldn't have any resources or connections, depending on how far back you manage to place yourself. Just showing up out of nowhere and starting a campaign for equality in your normal style would just get you branded as a terrorist at best."

"That's the best part" Harry said, gesturing at the array. "With this, i'll be going back as me." A small pulse of magic lit up the array in its entirety and Hermione was momentarily taken aback by the sheer size of it. ' _There must be dozens of lives tied up in that spell'_ She shut down the part of her that was trying to calculate just how many. This was far from the most extreme thing Harry had ever done and there was no changing it now.

While Hermione had been gaping at the newly revealed runes Harry had walked over to a section and began explaining in a fond voice. "This part identifies the alternate self and targets the array to them, while _this_ part" he pointed to an adjacent set of symbols "merges the traveller's soul and the target's into one entity, which only works because the two souls have functionally identical bases, seeing as they're more or less the same person and all. You'd have all your knowledge and most of your magical power, but merged with your younger self you'd have access to all the same support structure."

Unbidden a smile came to Hermione's lips as she listened to him outline his plan, the expression drawing an answering quirk from Harry's eyebrow. "Just thinking." She said by way of answer, then gave him an arch look when the eyebrow stayed raised.

"About anything in particular?" He asked with a smile.

"Just about how it took you nearly three decades to learn to plan ahead." A startled laugh broke free from Harry at that. "When exactly were you planning on taking this little cross-dimensional trip of yours?"

"In about…" Harry glanced at the array, which had begun to glow softly. "Two minutes or so? It'll take that long to charge the array." A tic began to develop above Hermione's brow.

"I take it back." She growled as she stalked forward. "And what exactly was your plan if I refused?"

"You weren't going to." Harry said matter-of-factly. "You're the most logical person I know 'Mione, but you're also one of the most passionate. There's next to nothing holding you in this world, much less this country, and you're not going to pass up the chance to see your friends and family again." He winced at the word family.

' _Even after all these years those scars still run deep'_

"And if I wanted time to plan? To look over your array or gather supplies?" She ground out.

"Can't take anything physical with us anyways." He answered cheerfully. "The portal only works for souls, bodies take WAY too much energy."

She glared at him for nearly a minute as the array grew brighter and brighter, his smile dimming slowly until he began to show signs of nervousness. When he looked on the verge of doing something stupid in an attempt to apologize she finally spoke.

"One of these days YOU are going to be the one chasing ME on a crazy plan, and I don't want to hear a single word." His smile threatened to break his face in half as he beamed at her. "Not. One. Word."

"Anything you say 'Mione."

"I'm not joking. Even if I ask you to dress up as Moody in a tutu and tapdance in Knockturn Alley on Halloween."

"Totally fine with me." The stupid thing was, he'd probably do it if she asked. Damn him and his steadfast loyalty.

A hum began to build from the array and Harry quickly stepped off to the side, just in time apparently. The lights representing alternate realities began to fade until only two were left, one red and one blue with a thick white line connecting them. The line seemed to pulse and move from the red dot to the blue dot in increasingly quick tics, and the floor above the main array began to grow hazy and warped like the air above hot pavement. Transfixed, Hermione stared at the distortion as it slowly became circular and darkened. Finally there was a loud *snickt* sound and the air seemed to jump to the sides as inky darkness filled the space between them.

"I'm supposed to go through _that_?" She asked doubtfully.

"It's totally safe." Harry said confidently. "It's just a magical doorway between dimensions covered with a spell field that will pull your soul out and put it in a new body. Totally fine" The look she gave him should have been able to burn him to cinders. Looking back at the rent in reality she huffed.

"Let's get this over with" With that battle cry she marched determinedly over to the rift and, trying **very** hard not to think about what could go wrong, stepped through.

Harry watched her disappear through the tear in reality and for the first time in recent memory he felt...unease. Not fear, but if he still possessed that emotion he'd probably be gibbering right now, which was stupid. He'd checked the equations literally hundreds of times, and they were perfect. Right now Hermione was merging with her alternate self, and thus perfectly fine. All he had to do was step through the tear and all his hard work would pay off. Despite knowing this his hands were shaking.

"Interesting" He murmured as he looked at his traitorous appendages. He neared the tear at a sedate walk, stopping only to admire his creation for a moment and give the darkness a quick salute. "Commence reckless plan #157." He said with a sardonic grin, and stepped through.

* * *

" _One of the most common questions asked of us was why we didn't use our influence more when it was at its peak, right after Voldemort's defeat, and to that question I always ask another: 'Why didn't you listen?'. The answer to both is the same. Despite what we'd done, we were still kids. With none of us even out of our teens yet and those in power used to the status quo, trying to get anyone to listen was like shouting into a void. We had done the impossible and saved Magical Britain, but even that didn't overcome our ages or, in several cases, our births."_

 _-Excerpt from 'Falling from Grace' by Harry James Potter. Banned by the Ministry of Magic in 2005_

He woke up. It was a strangely anticlimactic end to all his research and planning, to walk through the portal and not even be aware of the momentous feat of magic being performed around him.

' _I didn't even feel my soul being pulled from my body.'_ Harry thought morosely. He'd spent more time than was strictly healthy wondering about the nature of the soul and how the consciousness mingled with it, and for him to not even notice being disembodied was disappointing.

A glance around him showed a familiar (if somewhat unwelcome) bedroom, one he'd spent most of his summers during Hogwarts ensconced in while the Dursleys did their best to work him like a slave. The threadbare boxers he was wearing scratched against his skin uncomfortably as he shifted to avoid the early morning sunlight and glare at the clock, which blinked _6:22_.

" _Too early for either whale to be up and about while 'Auntie Dearest' is probably planning to spy on the neighbors for a while yet. Perfect'_ Harry thought with a smirk. He swung his legs over the side of the bed as he bounced to an upright position, and promptly fell on his face.

"Ow." He groaned slowly as he picked himself up, glaring at his limbs as he realized the problem. " _Getting used to being short again is going to be a bitch."_

It had taken more effort than expected, but an hour later he was seated at the table enjoying a breakfast of crepes wrapped around strawberries (one of the few healthy foods that could be found in the Dursley household, courtesy of Petunia's obsession with the ruby fruits). There was something surreal about the whole experience, and not just because he was sitting in a house he'd last seen as a burned-out ruin. This was probably the first time he'd ever been able to cook something solely for himself in his entire tenure in his relatives' care. The novelty put a whole new spin on what was normally a humdrum activity that had him smiling right up until he heard the stairs creaking heavily.

Vernon Dursley was not a man to take particular care in his motions, but traversing the stairs was one area where deliberation was key. A grand total of six steps had needed to be replaced over the last decade as his weight tore them down, and shards of wood painfully embedded in flesh will teach even the most obstinate some caution. This cautious approach lasted right up to the moment his eyes caught sight of the _boy_ eating his hard earned food at _his_ table, and he rumbled forward. Harry looked up with a pleasant smile as Vernon lumbered forward, his face purpling in rage.

"Morning." He said in a cheerful voice.

"YOU. HOW DARE YOU-"

Harry smoothly pulled his right hand out from under the table and tapped his now-visible wand against the table.

"How dare I what?" He asked in the same cheerful tone, wand still tapping hypnotically. "Make myself breakfast? It was quite easy actually. I could teach you if you'd like"

Vernon froze for several seconds as his eyes locked onto the length of polished wood before his bravado returned.

"You don't scare me, boy! You're not allowed to use that thing outside of that freak school of yours, that bearded poof said so." A cruel light glinted in his eyes.

"You know, you're absolutely right!" Harry exclaimed in mock surprise, then brought up his left hand as if holding an invisible ball. The space above his palm wavered like asphalt on a hot day before a ball of blue flame coalesced there, flickering calmly. "Guess it's a good thing I don't need one to deal with you."

The flat tone in Harry's voice seemed to penetrate some deep part of Vernon's hindbrain, and his posture shifted from threatening to defensive in the blink of an eye. Harry, the flames still cradled in his hands, chuckled softly as he looked at the terror of his younger years.

"You know, it would be so easy to end you right now. I could shove this-" he gestured with the hand holding the blue flames. "-down your throat and burn you from the inside out, and there's nothing you could really do to stop me." Vernon found himself unable to look away from Harry's eyes but there was nothing there but cold anger, long repressed and concentrated.

"It would be so easy. But I won't lower myself down to your level." The flames blinked out of existence like they'd never been, and Vernon found himself shuddering as some of the adrenaline flooding his system backed off. "Today is your lucky day, Uncle. It's the day I walk out of your life and you never have to see me again, and all you have to do in return is act like I still live here!" Harry's voice turned playful again as he popped the last bite of crepe into his mouth with his right hand while the left made an careless grasping motion. A crowd of objects including a cage with an irate Hedwig flew down the stairs and stacked themselves neatly in the trunk in front of Harry's feet, Vernon flinching as each object passed him. Harry stood up, absently sending his dishes to the sink at the same time, and grasped the handle.

"It's been fun, but I think it's time we went our separate ways."

Vernon stared at him in a combination of fear and suspicion the entire way to the front door, his frown growing with each shriek from Hedwig until the door shut.

Harry closed his eyes and took a deep shuddering breath, a thin line of sweat making a line from brow to collar. Wandless magic was good for shocking his uncle and avoiding ministry warnings, but controlling a wandless multi-summon was _hard_ , especially in a high-stress situation and despite the profound hatred he felt for Vernon terrifying the man with magic had made him feel… unclean somehow. He leaned against the door for a minute until his breathing slowed, then shook himself and pushed off the frame, his attention shifting to the baleful gaze of his oldest companion.

"Sorry about that, girl." Harry said as he leaned down and undid the latch to her cage. Hedwig glared at him as a few short wingbeats took her to the top of the cage, then reached out with one wing to swat the side of his head. "Hey, I said I was sorry!" he exclaimed as he dodged the feathered appendage. "Fine, how about you fly ahead and I'll get you some bacon later?" Hedwig's stare seemed to bore into before she gave a small bob of her head a soft bark. Harry sighed in relief. "I'll be at the Leaky Cauldron, meet me there?" His familiar gave another bark before disappearing in a flurry of wingbeats, and Harry couldn't help but smile as he watched her fly away. He'd missed her more than he realized.

As soon as Hedwig's flying form passed out of sight Harry's expression faded back into a neutral mask that was soon covered by a nondescript cap and a minor glamour to change the color of his eyes and the shape of his face (not to mention cover the famous scar), leaving him completely unrecognizable within seconds. A quick glance in the reflection of the kitchen window (through which he could still see Vernon staring at the front door) showed his work as satisfactory, prompting a small nod to himself as he pulled the familiar length of holly and phoenix feather from his pocket and holding it. A loud bang and some smoke later, and he was on his way.

* * *

In a tower tucked away high in a castle in Scotland, a witch slept surrounded by empty sherry bottles. Her slumber was anything but peaceful; sweat marred her brow even as her body tossed and turned restlessly.

Sybill Trelawney, contrary to popular opinion, was not unaware of what the rest of the staff (and most of the students) thought of her. She knew she drank _far_ more than was healthy, and that a few like Minerva openly called her a fraud to her back. What most _didn't_ know was that she wished, down to the bottom of her very soul, that they were right. That she didn't have the sliver of the Sight that she'd been born with, that tormented her.

It was a commonly known fact that a Seer would remember none of a prophecy they uttered. This had been established early on in ancient Rome, and to a degree was true. What was not widely known was the side effects of a prophecy; for any event to be momentous enough to trigger a Seer's gift, much less a gift as weak as Sybill's, it would have to affect hundreds, or even thousands, of lives. Such events were more often than not of a profoundly violent nature, and while a Seer couldn't remember the prophecy itself, there was a bit of 'bleed-through' as the prophecy was wrenched through their psyche and into the normal world. Which meant, for a Seer, that their unconscious absorbed all the surrounding 'atmosphere' of the prophecy, leading to some very uncomfortable side effects like the ones currently being experienced by Sybill.

The sweat and thrashing began to increase to a frenzied tempo as Hogwarts' Divination professor began to moan softly, the thick duvet tangling around her limbs and holding her down, until something resembling a loud groan passed her lips and her back arched up. Eyes normally dark green glowed white with power as the unfiltered essence of time itself flowed through her, barely guided by her weak gift, and she began to speak in a guttural tone.

" _The child of light falls into shadow._

 _As the very walls of the world are torn asunder innocence perishes under the weight of experience._

 _A darkness that once was will never be, but in its place an abyss beyond all threatens._

 _Besides him walks the Supplicant of Alexandria, his heart and mind kept safe next to poison._

 _And she shall stand between the world and the abyss, for on her shoulders lies the choice_

 _Should the abyss come forth only the poison may save all, but should she cling to the heart the abyss shall reign forevermore._

 _The child of light falls into shadow…."_

As her voice faded away Sybil's thrashing quieted down to the occasional grimace, and the sweat slowly dried as her sleep became at least somewhat peaceful. With the pressure of the impending prophecy gone her gift slowly faded back into quiescence, and once more Sybill Trelawney was just one more simply person with a number of demons, nothing too uncommon in a country that had survived Voldemort.

* * *

" _It started, as things most often do, with one person deciding that the current status quo was unacceptable. James Stafford was a muggleborn that graduated from Hogwarts in the spring of 1978 with some of the highest marks seen since Albus Dumbledore and Thomas Riddle walked those hallowed halls. His transcript was full of praise from professors, and Slughorn himself put in a good word on the boy's behalf as he transitioned from school into the working world. Despite all this, James was denied patronage from Mastery after Mastery, and ended up taking work as a janitor in a small shop as a means to pay for what little he needed. Angered by the bigotry he was facing he vowed to gain the mastery he sought in skill, if not on paper, and by the time the Second Blood War had ended he emerged ready to help shape a society that had finally seen the folly of 'blood purity'. Unfortunately for him, the same people were, by and large, still in power, and so he was brushed aside. Unfortunately for those same people, he didn't take this second dismissal quietly."_

 _-Excerpt from 'Falling from Grace' by Harry James Potter. Banned by the Ministry of Magic in 2005_

There were few things more disconcerting than waking up somewhere you were not expecting, but waking up some _body_ you were not expecting trumps that by quite a bit. From the moment Hermione opened her eyes she had been bombarded by memories that had long since dulled with age, but now were brought to life in vivid color as she slowly panned her gaze around the room.

" _Merlin, why is everything so_ _ **cluttered**_ _?"_ She stared balefully as the bookshelf straining to contain her collection of literature, its shelves looking like the only thing holding them up was the tops of the books on the shelf underneath. Compared to the meticulously organized and crafted library trunk she'd used as an adult, the strained shelving was almost offensive.

The sound of someone unexpectedly moving downstairs startled her and she immediately tried to jump out of bed, already willing her wand into hand, only to stumble and catch herself on the wall. A confused glance downward immediately informed her that she was now considerably shorter than she was used to, and that the hand holding her wand was lacking the normal polished manicure she'd adopted along with her professional persona.

"Hermione? Is everything OK up there?" The sound of her father's voice froze her more effectively than any petrification, throwing her back year into memories she'd long suppressed.

 _As a young woman, Hermione Granger was many things: driven, intelligent, perceptive. Her positive qualities were easy to name, but ask the right person and many of her negatives came just as easily to light: opinionated, stubborn._ _ **Arrogant**_ _. It was a word she would never use to describe herself early on, but one she would come to accept as her most grievous sin. Case in point, trained Mind Healers normally underwent a rigorous_ _two year_ _apprenticeship before being certified in even the most basic mental modifications. Outside of simply blanking the last few minutes or (in extreme cases) hours of someone's memory, the Memory Charm was a tool of extreme complexity, fraught with possible missteps and pitfalls. Hermione, on the other hand, picked up the basics of the spell in a little over two weeks and then erased herself from seventeen years of her parents' memory. Such a large cover up was patched with a quickly manufactured identity slapped on top and then they were sent away to Australia with fake lives and fake names. It should have come as no surprise that her attempts to reverse the damage, not weeks after the Battle of Hogwarts, were neither completely successful nor without consequences._

 _The first attempt to retrieve their memories was, in a manner of speaking, a success. The Grangers did recover their previous lives in the entirety, remembering their daughter and magic. What didn't happen, however, was the erasure of their past lives. Suddenly her parents had not one but_ _ **two**_ _lifetimes worth of memories stuck where normally only one would reside, and their psyche was having a hard time compensating. What was supposed to be a quick in-and-out trip began to drag, and the effects were felt all around._

 _Hermione, in typical fashion, threw herself into books and academia in an attempt to fix what she'd broken. She was blowing through an accelerated book-list of accepted Mind Healer texts at a furious pace even as her parents' minds began to bend under the stress. The Grangers began having moments of disorientation, memories either disappearing altogether or suddenly being relived with startling quality. The stress of their condition and the knowledge that their daughter was responsible, even with the best intentions, began to taint their relationship._

 _Even as Hermione was working furiously to try and heal her parents, Ron began to grow more and more confused and angry over Hermione's abrupt disappearance. It takes an extremely powerful witch or wizard to apparate internationally or create a similar portkey, and while Ron wasn't a dunce he had neither Hermione's skill or Harry's raw power. Their relationship was so new, and as what was supposed to be days grew first into weeks, and then months, Ron began to become distant. Nearly eleven months after she'd first left to find her parents Ron sent a letter saying he 'loved her but couldn't wait forever'. Harry delivered the letter (as he_ _ **was**_ _capable of international travel) at Ron's request, his oldest friend citing a fear of the letter getting lost. It said a lot about the state of their relationship at that point that Hermione was barely distracted from her research by the letter, or that she shed only a few tears over the note. She was so focused she missed the aura of rage that had sprung up around Harry as she told him of its contents, and it would be nearly a year before she learned of the chain reaction it had set in motion._

 _Three weeks after Ron's letter Hermione's parents would be involved in a fatal car crash as her father's memories suddenly superimposed while he was on the highway, and it would be another month before a heartbroken Hermione could gather the will to travel back to Britain. By that time, however, the 'Dark Lord Stafford' had begun to penetrate the media, and she once again had something to focus on-_

"Hermione!?" Her mother's cry broke Hermione from her reverie, though it actually helped spur the small trickle of tears that began to fall.

"I'm fine mum!" She shouted back, proud that her voice was stable. "I just tripped is all."

She heard her father say something and her mother's answering laugh, and took a moment to process. They were alive. Alive and safe and with their minds intact. _They were downstairs_.

Less than a minute later a rumpled but dressed Hermione dashed down the stairs and caught her father in a bone-breaking hug that almost made him lose hold of his coffee, then switched to her only-slightly-more-prepared mother.

"What brought that on?" Her father asked, smiling.

"Nothing" Hermione mumbled into her mother's shoulder. "Just felt like hugging you both."

Her mother's laugh caused her shoulder to dig slightly into Hermione's cheek but she didn't care. Her family was whole again.

* * *

Despite it being summer it was still a weekday, and her parents still had their practice to attend to. Hermione had to hold herself back from clinging to them as they left, continually reassuring herself that they would be back soon, safe and sound.

She was attempting to distract herself by making a list of all the things she remembered from this time period her last time around when the doorbell rang and, curious, she padded over to open the door.

"Harry!?" She said in a subdued shriek as she tried to ask the important question with her eyes and tone. " _Is it you?"_

"Hey 'Mione'" He replied in a nervous tone. "I, uh. I could use some help."

Regardless of the answer to her question she would never refuse to help Harry, and as she stepped aside he moved past her and began pacing.

"Is everything ok Harry?" She asked as she closed the door. "You look...nervous."

"I am." He said in a clipped tone. "And that's the problem."

Confused, Hermione raised an eyebrow at him in the universal 'and?' look. He paused his pacing and returned her look with an incredulous one of his own.

"I am _**nervous**_. Nervousness is a derivative of anxiety, which is a derivative of _**fear**_." Understanding dawned for Hermione even as she started to recognize the look in Harry's eyes.

"Hermione" He said, grabbing her shoulders and turning fully to look at her. "I can still see magic, but my fear is back. There was nothing in my equations that suggested this, and I don't know what happened!"

"Harry, you need to calm down." Hermione found herself slipping back into the academic persona she wore for most of her early years as she tried to head of what appeared to be an anxiety attack from her best friend, one of the most fearless people she'd ever met even before the ritual. ' _Curious. Maybe an atrophied ability to deal with fear and its side effects due to long-term absence? Nevermind,_ _ **focus**_ _Hermione. We can figure out what happened after we make sure Harry doesn't blow up the house with a burst of accidental magic."_ She grabbed his shoulders in a mirror of his grip and stared into his eyes. "I need you to tell me **exactly** what happened, and then we can both work on figuring out what restored your ability to feel fear, OK? Just take it nice and slow."

Harry stared at her for the several heartbeats as the panic began to fade from his eyes, and then took a deep breath.

"OK" he said, closing his eyes and letting out a shuddering breath. "It all started-"

 _The Knight Bus was just as jarring as ever, and even bracing didn't seem to help much with the multi-directional impacts. When he finally reached the Leaky Cauldron his legs felt like jelly and he threw a glare at the conductor as the bus vanished with a bang and a puff of smoke, probably to terrorize some other innocent passenger._

 _He allowed himself a minute or two to get his stomach back into something resembling proper placement and then straightened, taking notice of the crowds specifically_ _ **not**_ _taking notice of him and the pub._

"Inside the notice-me-not, good." _He thought as he reached into the pocket of his oversized jeans and produced his wand. Unlike at Privet Drive, there was always a goodly amount of magic being cast in or around the Leaky Cauldron. While the Trace could tell magic was being cast in the vicinity it couldn't tell by whom, and as a result it ignored any 'pings' from high-magic areas. In other words, he was free to cast a more powerful glamour than he could manage wandlessly, as well as shrink his luggage._

 _When the door to the Cauldron opened the few people to look up saw a distinguished older man with a thinning hairline and a thick mustache dressed in dark grey robes, and promptly went back to their meals as he walked up to the barman._

" _G'day sir, what 'cn I do for ya Mr...?" Tom asked, his dictation actually quite impressive for someone with no teeth._

" _Wells, Herbert Wells. And I could use a room for the next few weeks if you have one available?" Harry replied, his voice artificially aged and deepened. He used a bit of sleight-of-hand to make a galleon appear in his right hand which he placed down on the table, then another._

" _Could be I do, iffn it be for a fine gentleman like yerself." Tom answered, quickly grabbing a key off the wall without looking. "The rates is two galleons a day, or 10 for a week, and that includes breakfast and dinner._

" _Done." Harry answered immediately. He could afford that quite easily, and clunked down another 18 galleons. "I trust this will stand me in good stead for the next two weeks?" Tom's nod was enthusiastic as the old barman led moved around the counter and motioned for Harry to follow him. Up a flight of rickety stairs that could only be stabilized by magic, they walked down a hallway lined with numbered doors until they stopped at one labeled '4'._

'Ironic' _Harry thought to himself with a small grimace, one that disappeared before Tom could notice._

"' _ome sweet 'ome." The barman quipped with a toothless smile, opening the door with a flourish even as he handed over the key._

 _The room was simple but spacious, the expansion charms obvious but looking well-maintained. A bed sat against the far wall bracketed by windows while a small wardrobe lined the wall to his right, and a desk to the left. It wasn't fancy, but it was nondescript and anonymous. Perfect._

" _Thank you." He nodded to Tom as he produced another galleon and pressed it into the barman's hand. The gold disappeared with practiced efficiency even as Tom bowed theatrically low, and Harry shut the door to the room behind him. As soon as he heard the stairs begin to creak under Tom's weight he pulled his wand once more and layered charms over the doorway; locking, imperturbable, shielding, anti-eavesdropping, and a dozen others imbued the wood before he finally let out a relieved breath and felt secure._

 _A flick of his wrist had his trunk out and enlarged on the bed, and another conjured up two tablet-sized pieces of slate and a steel stylus. He set the slate on the desk and, using the stylus to etch, began to work._

 _An hour later he was nearly done with the second tablet, the first already glowing as his blood pooled into several eldritch shapes, when a knock at the door caused him to nearly gouge a furrow from the slate._

" _Mr. Wells? Got some dinner for ya."_

 _For a moment Harry froze, the shifting glow of the first tablet mocking him with its_ _ **astounding**_ _illegality. Then another knock came, and his heart began to pound wildly._

" _Just a minute!" He shouted back, looking wildly around the room. He needed a place to hid the tablets! As the doorknob rattled Harry made a wild gesture and sent the tablets underneath his bed, the sheets hanging low enough that only the slightest red glow was visible playing across their underside, and grabbed his wand to undo the protections he'd placed on the door._

" _Beef stew an' a side of fresh bread, hot from the oven." Tom said as he stepped in, a tray floating behind him. He paused a moment as he saw Harry standing half out of his chair, then smiled at the empty desk and directed the tray onto the wood surface. "Just leave it when yer finished, Killy'll grab it."_

" _Thank you, it looks delicious." Harry said with a wooden smile, and the barman shuffled out._

 _As the door closed Harry sank to his knees, head pounding in time with his heart, held back a scream._

"You were _carving blood runes in the Leaky Cauldron!?_ " Hermione's voice rose as she stared at Harry, who blinked owlishly at her.

" _That's_ what you focus on?" He asked incredulously after a moment. "Not the restoration of an emotion I shouldn't be able to feel according to every fundamental rule of magic?"

She gave him a look reserved for times when he was being particularly dense.

"Harry, you threw our souls across dimensions and merged them with their younger counterparts, a feat I didn't even think _possible_ until I showed up at your doorstep yesterday...two decades from now...er, whenever!" She began massaging her temples, a strange sight for a girl not yet 14. "Either way, the established rules of magic are useless here. The standard _laws_ of magical Britain, however, are still very much in play!"

" _Smart enough to send us on a cross-dimensional time trip but nearly gets himself thrown in Azkaban on the first_ _ **day**_ _we're back!"_ She fumed. Harry stared at her, then gave a sigh and looked down.

"You're right." He admitted, causing Hermione's brows to raise. He was normally much more recalcitrant than this when it came to admitting mistakes.

"And you're admitting this so easily because…" She ventured, curious. Harry shot her a dirty look.

"Because you _are_ right, and even though I managed to come up with this plan and make it work, I'm not much of a planner under normal circumstances. I tend to tear off on my own and in this case I fell back on old habits without considering the consequences. I'm sorry." He looked up with one of those lopsided smiles she could never seem to stay angry at. "Pax?" Despite her best intentions she felt a smile begin to form.

"Pax." She said as she stopped fighting the smile, then walked over to Harry and wrapped him in a hug. "I'm glad you made it safely." she said softly as he returned her embrace. They broke apart some time later, Hermione discretely wiping a tear from her eye before asking something she really should have asked earlier.

"So what were you carving those runes for anyway?

* * *

Amelia Bones sighed as she looked down at the body in front of her and tried to ignore a far-too-calm Narcissa Malfoy neé Black as the other woman stared at her. Despite the body of her husband and father of her child lying just a few feet away the Malfoy matriarch had shed not a single tear, and was instead glaring haughtily at Amelia.

"And you just found him like this?" She asked, ignoring the way Narcissa's eyes narrowed in irritation.

"Yes." She bit out. "Just as I told the other Auror, I found him like this when I woke this morning." No mention was made of the fact that it had taken her nearly half an hour after waking to become curious about Lucius' uncharacteristic sloth and come to _his_ bedroom. They hadn't shared a bed in years.

Amelia ignored the not-so-subtle dig that the director of the DMLE had been ordered by Fudge to investigate this scene directly, convinced foul play was the only way his 'good friend' could have died. "Anything?" She turned to Victoria Samuels, the DMLE medic she'd brought with her.

"Nothing overt, that's for sure." Victoria said without looking up. "No signs of magic, dark or otherwise. The cause of death appears to be a heart failure, though not of the normal kind. It's like an otherwise normal heart just...gave out." The medic looked up from the body to Narcissa. "Did he have any medical conditions, anything he saw a Healer about regularly?" The widow Malfoy just shook her head sharply. "Then I've got nothing. Apart from a slightly elevated plasma volume he's completely normal, and that could be explained by a late-night glass of water." She stood up with a small groan as her back cracked, vanishing the gloves on her hands as she moved. "I'll have my report on your desk by two." Amelia nodded as the other woman walked away and turned back to Narcissa.

"My condolences, but as you just heard my ME found no signs of foul play. I'm very sorry, but it appears there is nothing I can do." ' _Not_ too _sorry though. Maybe Cornelius will actually grow a backbone without Malfoy's gold whispering in his ear. Or at least have an original thought for once.'_

Narcissa glared at her back the entire way out.

* * *

"I _cannot_ believe I let you talk me into that." Hermione said for the third time as she and Harry sat outside of Fortescue's. Her parents were at work still, and she was shamelessly taking the opportunity to enjoy one of the shop's sinfully decadent creations without their disapproving looks.

"See, you _say_ I 'talked you into it', but I don't remember you arguing very hard…" Harry smirked as she threw him a dirty look.

"Only because you, if left to your own devices, would probably have turned Narcissa into an inferus _just because_ , or some other spur-of-the-moment headache that I would then be compelled to deal with after the fact. Going along with you was just heading a problem off at the pass."

"You make it sound like I can't follow a plan." Harry adopted a mock-hurt expression.

"Your 'plan' was to waltz through their wards and inject him with conjured potassium. No layouts, no reconnaissance, just breaking and entering with a side of homicide." Despite her criticism Hermione's voice was more droll than angry. Much as she knew she _should_ care about premeditated murder, Lucius Malfoy was just...not a nice person, and that was putting it kindly.

Harry's smirk said he was fully aware of how little conviction backed her protests and spooned another generous helping of ice cream (vanilla with fire ants and gummy bears, a strange combination). He savored the bite for a moment, eyes closed with bliss, and then smirked evilly as he met her eyes. "Either way it worked, and I'm looking forward to the _Prophet_ article. I wonder if they'll rule it natural causes or try to start a witch hunt…"

Hermione scoffed. "It's Skeeter, so... I'm betting they blame Dumbledore obliquely while calling the DMLE incompetent for allowing a 'distinguished member of the community' to fall prey to nefarious influences."

Harry reached into his pocket, pulling out a galleon and placing it on the table between them as he quirked a brow. A moment later her own galleon joined Harry's as she smiled sweetly at her best friend.

"Easy money"

* * *

Harry narrowed his eyes at a smiling Hermione the next day, both of them ensconced in the Granger living room. "You know, I thought you'd have been nicer to Trelawney. Kindred spirits and all." Brown eyes narrowed dangerously, and it was only Harry's well-honed reflexes that saved him from the volley of wandless stinging charms. The smoking spots on the couch fabric were quickly repaired as Harry cautiously poked his head out from behind the couch, then tumbled over. His shoes, the laces tied together by a discreet charm from Hermione while he dove for cover, arced over his head and nearly landed on the table holding the morning _Prophet_.

 _ **MURDER MOST FOUL!**_

 _ **Community Mourns the Loss of an Icon**_

 _-Rita Skeeter_

 _Dear readers, it is with great sorrow today that I write of the loss of a great man, one our society may well never see the like of again. A brilliant paragon possessed of long-reaching vision and great oratory skills, of nearly-unending perseverance in working to correct the ills of our world. A man whose legacy can be seen in laws passed and charitable works._

 _I speak, of course, of Lucius Abraxas Malfoy._

 _The patriarch of the Malfoy family was found dead in his Wiltshire manor late yesterday morning by his wife, Narcissa Malfoy neé Black. DMLE Aurors were called immediately to the scene along with DMLE Medical Examiner Victoria Samuels, a 12 year veteran of the Department, who declared Lord Malfoy's death a result of 'spontaneous heart failure'. Despite a lack of evidence of any predisposing health conditions and a well-known aversion to unsavory activities that might result in such weakness, Samuels declared no signs of foul play. That the assertion neatly absolves the DMLE of searching for the perpetrator of this 'natural death' is, of course, merely procedure._

 _Lord Malfoy has been working hard in recent years against many of the entrenched obstructionists in the Wizengamot to form a unified progressive coalition focused on progress while still defending our sacred traditions. One can only wonder if someone without the skill to face him in the political arena instead chose a coward's way of silencing the great man, or if the long hours Lord Malfoy has had to put in at the Ministry helping to shape policy are to blame in weakening the late Lord's known prowess enough for something to slip him by. With the DMLE currently declaring the case closed, we may never know. Regardless, we at the Daily Prophet mourn with all of Britain, and indeed the world, over the loss of an Icon of our times._

In all honesty Harry could admire the amount of work that went into smearing basically everyone who _wasn't_ Malfoy in the article. He wasn't sure if Skeeter had somehow sniffed the story out and been there in bug form or if Narcissa had taken the initiative and contacted her, but the 'journalist' had taken basically no information at all and spun it into a compelling tale. A martyr working for the good of all wizarding-kind against an obstinate Wizengamot and a Ministry that needed his help, if Harry hadn't known better even _he_ might have been swayed a bit by the rhetoric.

"You know, I think Rita missed her calling with this whole journalist thing." Hermione looked at him curiously as Harry tried to undo the locking spell she'd somehow managed to infuse his shoelaces with. Frustrated, he checked to make sure his body covered her line of sight and used a whisper of will to draw a drop of magic-infused blood to the surface of his finger. The power infusing the red liquid responded to his thoughts, immediately forming a glyph that flashed as he touched the laces and absorbed the spell. A wicked smile formed on his lips as he turned to his best friend while surreptitiously flicked the now-round drop of blood at her pant-covered leg. "With all that experience creating fiction she should have been a novelist. She'd probably bankrupt Lockhart in under a year."

Hermione groaned at the mention of her one-time crush. "I am never going to be able to live that down, am I?" The long-suffering look she shot towards him morphed into something approaching puppy-dog eyes, but before they could work their magic on him a voice startled them both.

"Never going to live down what?" Hermione stiffened in surprise and tried to turn, but the binding spell Harry had transferred to her pant leg sealed it to the couch and nearly pulled her out of the comfortable sweats she'd been lounging in.

"Hermione _might_ have had a bit of an... _interest_ in our Defense teacher this year, and he turned out to be less impressive than he appeared." Harry responded promptly, already rising to introduce himself to Hermione's mother, a woman he'd only really only met once in their previous lives (the last summer, in fact). "Harry Potter, at your service". He said, lowering his lips to her proffered hand. He stopped his lips a fraction of an inch before touching her knuckles before looking up to meet familiar eyes crinkled in amusement.

"A charmer." Hermione's mother said with a smile, noting the flaming blush now covering Hermione's cheeks. Despite being dressed in slacks instead of a skirt or dress the older woman pulled off a passable curtsey. "Desdemona Granger, though if you're willing to share about this _interest_ of Hermione's you can call me Des. Perhaps over dinner tonight? You'd be more than welcome."

" _Mother!"_ Hermione's blush was nearing catastrophic proportions as she watched her best friend flirt with _her mother_ before Harry looked at her with a knowing smile and winked. Winked! Her blush flared even darker as she glared at them. "I hate you both." She muttered.

"Love you too 'Mione." Harry laughed back, and Desdemona's brow rose as Hermione accepted the nickname and sentiment without comment. ' _Interesting…'_ She thought as Harry turned back to her.

"It's a deal, though if I'm staying for dinner I insist on at least helping prepare it." Harry said. "I've cooked for my relatives for years, so I should be able to be of at least a little use."

"A gentleman _and_ a cook, I may just have to keep you Harry." Des said, continuing the game more to see her daughter's reaction than anything else. She reached out and slid her hand through Harry's elbow with exaggerated flourish. "The kitchen awaits, dear sir, as do your promised stories. Besides-" she looked down at Hermione "I think it will take a few minutes before ' _Mione'_ comes to her senses."

Laughing as Hermione began to bang her head against the table, the two began to head towards the kitchen. Behind them Hermione could only close her eyes and lament ever allowing those two to meet.

"This can only be trouble." She muttered.

* * *

"So let me get this straight; your crush, a teacher of many flowing golden locks and shiny teeth, not only lied about having the equivalent of the Victoria Cross but, instead of being called on it, he was actually given a _teaching job_? Does the wizarding world not have background checks?" Des asked incredulously as she chopped vegetables while Harry prepared a teriyaki marinade for the chicken.

"They do." Harry said without looking up. "But it's more of a 'who was your father' or 'who do you know' background check than a 'what are your qualifications'." He added minced ginger and garlic to a small bowl already containing blended soy sauce, brown sugar, and cornstarch before stirring vigorously and adding it to a container holding the chicken. "And Dumbledore has had problems in the past keeping Defense teachers around. They tend not to last long." Hermione nodded in agreement even as she scowled at the nepotism.

"Why? Is Hogwarts' pay bad or something?" Des asked as she finished the bell peppers.

"Nope. Position is cursed." Harry replied with a smile to Desdemona's incredulous look.

"You...have a cursed teaching position."

"Yup. 2 for 2 so far for us,and I hear it's pretty much par for course. The Weasley twins apparently tried to set up a betting pool around it but nobody would bet for the professor, so it never took off." Hermione winced slightly as her mother gave her an arched look.

' _Oh, that's right I forgot. I haven't told them much about what happened at school...oops.'_

"I see."

Harry continued on, completely oblivious to Hermione's growing feeling of dread.

"At least Flopheart didn't actively _set out_ to kill me, just...accidentally sort of fell into it." A layer of plastic wrap went around the chicken before it was placed in the fridge to marinate. "And he didn't stutter, so that puts him MILES ahead of Quirrel, at any rate." He turned to see both Granger women looking at him, Des with incredulity quickly shifting to displeasure while Hermione's hair was actually starting to stand up due to her attempts to silence him wandlessly.

"Er...the chicken should be ready in half an hour or so?" He tried lamely, but alas he was doomed.


	2. Chapter 2

A/N: I own nothing.

 _The Ministry would have you believe that Stafford was a violently disruptive rebel, out to destroy the system he failed to succeed in out of spite. The truth is that Stafford began gathering muggleborn and half-blood witches and wizards dissatisfied with the status quo. They staged a series of peaceful protests against discriminatory practices and laws being pushed under the aegis of 'tradition'. In addition to painting these protestors as violent fanatics, the Ministry attempted to take them into custody using mostly 'off-duty' DMLE staff. These protesters, though, had survived a regime that tried to wipe them out and were led by a man known (at least by those who met him without prejudice) to have mastery over magic normally attributed to the likes of Dumbledore or Voldemort. They did not accept being unjustly arrested quietly and their aggressors, unprepared, were easily subdued. Seen at the time as isolated abuses of an indolent regime, they would soon be spun into tales of rebellion and dark magic._

 _-Excerpt from 'Falling from Grace' by Harry James Potter. Banned by the Ministry of Magic in 2005_

There were several benefits to the Headmaster's office: comfy chairs, shelves of rare books, the ability to change the entrance to whatever floor you wanted. All of these amused and comforted Albus, but the feature that most captivated him was the windows. They were large, arching affairs with panels stained in many different shades from amber to sapphire, and with a single command could change to allow an unobstructed view of the Hogwarts grounds including the Black Lake. Often were the hours he would spend gazing over his domain as he worked for the Greater Good of the wizarding world, and unfortunately often were the times, like now, that he used their tranquil beauty to soothe his mind.

' _Sirius, was it not enough to betray them? Must you come for their son as well?'_ He thought morosely as memories of four young boys gamboling across the grounds swam up from the depths of his mind. That was one of the hardest thing about living so long as an educator; no matter what his students did later in life, a part of him still saw them as the fresh, innocent young minds that first set foot in the castle under his care. Dumbledore was not a young man, having seen over a century, and much of that as an educator. Wizarding lifespans being what they were, he had seen literally tens of thousands of children grow into healers and bureaucrats, curse breakers and enchanters. ' _Killers and rapists'_ the dark part of his mind that had been so in tune with Gellert whispered, causing him to sigh. No matter how he tried to see the best in people, that voice was always there.

"We can never fully escape ourselves, can we?" He asked his oldest friend, and Fawkes trilled his fiery song in a soothing response. Albus smiled, allowing himself a moment of pure happiness as phoenix song washed over his soul, and then turned to the letter he'd been putting off. Cornelius was pushing for Dementor presence on the grounds with Sirius presumed after Harry, something Dumbledore was fighting him tooth and nail but still failing to sway him on. The thought of those abominations _protecting_ anyone was laughable, especially Harry Potter. The boy had a _horcrux_ in his head for Merlin's sake! They were more likely to accomplish Black's goal for him than protect the school! It would be a disaster, and he couldn't let the boy die.

Not yet.

* * *

 **It was a melancholy Harry that stepped back into his room at the Three Broomsticks, his stomach pleasantly full of delicious stir fry and his head full of pleasant memories. It wasn't that he was jealous of Hermione, not really. She deserved some good in her life, especially after all she'd put up with to keep him alive throughout the years...and yet he couldn't deny that part of him saw her smile in a carefree way like she hadn't for** ** _years_** **, and felt a pang of longing. So instead of laying down on the surprisingly comfortable mattress and falling into the lands of Morpheus, Harry fell back into old habits and began to distract himself. When he was younger that would be with quidditch practice or chess with Ron, something he never really became good at. These days...these days his hobbies were a bit more esoteric.**

He reappeared in the backyard of a dark Number 4 with barely a whisper of sound, long years of practice making his apparition nearly perfect. The house itself was dark, the late hour almost guaranteeing that the Dursleys would be tucked into bed and giving Harry uninterrupted time to work on one of the great mysteries of his younger life.

The blood wards.

Their nature had plagued him in his later years. He had come across hundreds of different protective rituals, literally _thousands_ of different ways to set up wards, but he'd never come across anything capable of being anchored to a living body, much less an infant, that would _disintegrate_ someone the way Quirrel had been on mere contact with Harry in his first year. Already dead and gone before he'd gained an interest in blood magic, they had sat so long in his 'unexplained' category that he almost couldn't believe he would be getting a chance to change that now. He raised a hand to his temple and pulsed magic into a film across his eyes while staring at the house in front of him, and then frowned.

' _What the hell?'_ Harry thought while trying to make sense of what was in front of him. First was the shape: instead of the normal dome-shaped ward, a bubble the color of dried blood emanated from Petunia and Vernon's bedroom. Even more confusing was the tether that extended from the center of the bubble to his chest, a tether that pulsed in time to his heartbeat. There was a slight sheen, now that he was looking for it, that covered him like a second skin and pulsed just like the tether, but it was all so dim. He couldn't imagine it having the power to make Voldemort sneeze, much less prevent him finding Harry for nearly two decades-

Harry's thoughts were interrupted as he noticed something interesting, namely that the pulses were not uniform. Every few pulses there would be a larger jump, and each jump corresponded to a tiny reduction in the size of the blood-colored bubble. It was nearly imperceptible, a reduction of such tiny proportions that the bubble could take years of pulses to noticeably shrink, but it was there. And each time the bubble shrunk, the film over Harry's skin brightened for just a moment.

" _Motherfucker!"_ Harry swore loudly enough to wake half the neighborhood before turning jerkily and vanishing, a loud pop heralding his arrival back at his room in the Leaky Cauldron. Immediately he began to pace in agitation as wind began to pick up in the room. "That fucking idiot, that imbecilic _fool!"_ Harry grit his teeth in an angry rictus as he considered what he'd learned. It certainly showed Petunia's hatred of Harry in a new light. The son of her estranged sister, a boy possessing the same power that she herself lacked. A power that made him capable of wondrous and terrible things.

A power that was draining her dry.

It was obvious now why Harry had never been able to find a way to replicate the wards, because they weren't really wards at all. They were some kind of intent-sensitive defensive system that Dumbledore had tied to Petunia and bastardized into a stealth ward, but the system wasn't designed for that and it wasn't powering itself however the old man had intended. Instead the protection (which seemed to be anchored into his very skin, likely the actions of his mother if what people said about the late Lily Potter née Evans was anything to go by) had responded to the taxing of its power levels by pulling power from wherever it could. As its primary purpose was to protect Harry it couldn't pull power from him, so it pulled power from the only other source: Petunia. If his aunt had had magic of her own, this would only be a small nuisance. As she didn't have magic of her own the protections drained her life force instead and converted it into useable power, something that was probably responsible for her stick-like figure while eating the same kind (if not the same quantity) of food as her husband and son. Hell, now that he thought about it she probably owed Voldemort her life in his home dimension: If he hadn't short-circuited Harry's protections during the resurrection ritual they would probably have drained her to death in just a few more years. Distance was also a factor in these kinds of links, and she probably felt herself weakening any time she was close to Harry. A few years of that kind of feedback…

"The road to hell…" Harry muttered the old axiom as he calmed down enough to be sure he wouldn't accidentally blow anything up, and then began to think about the problem logically. The blood defenses (and he couldn't think of them as wards anymore, the part of him he associated with Hermione kept muttering about improper labeling when he did) _were_ an indisputably powerful tool, but he couldn't justify leaving them linked to Petunia like that. For one thing it was wrong, but more importantly she was a muggle and just couldn't provide much power to them in the first place. He would need to disconnect them from their current anchor, which would start a countdown until their power was completely depleted unless he found another power source. Fortunately he had an idea about that which neither Dumbledore nor Voldemort would ever suspect, and which would help out someone he owed more than he could ever repay.

* * *

Three days was a long time to worry about someone, especially someone with the kind of penchant for getting into trouble that Harry so effortlessly displayed. Three days was _also_ a long time to be stuck in a house with a mother who just _wouldn't stop teasing her._ Whether it was about Lockheart or Harry was irrelevant, her mother was getting far too much enjoyment out of tormenting her. She'd almost rather be dragged on another of Harry's insane-

' _Too close'_ Hermione let out a relieved sigh as she forcefully prevented herself from finishing that thought. She wasn't one to believe in superstition under normal circumstances, but the sheer amount of coincidence that seemed to inhabit her best friend's life defied all statistical norms. She'd long ago learned not to tempt fate when it came to Harry.

"Hermione? Could you come here please?" Her mother's voice came from the front hallway, and Hermione could hear at least one other person talking in a low tone. ' _Must have missed the bell'_ She thought as she drew closer, only to stop as she heard what was simultaneously the most glorious and terrifying babble of words.

"Dobby is being most delighted to meet the great Harry Potter sir's 'Mione's Mother, it is being a great honor!" delight at the realization that Dobby was _alive_ was drowned out by the part of her brain throwing up error messages because he _could not be here!_

Harry had a fraction of a second's warning before his shoulder was caught in a metal vice masquerading as the hand of his best friend.

"Hi!" he chirped, smiling blithely in the face of Hermione's glare. Before he could say any more he was unceremoniously dragged off with a perfunctory "can I talk to you for a moment", waving goodbye to Des. As soon as they turned a corner he was treated to the sight of a thoroughly flustered Hermione.

"Harry, what the bloody hell do you think you're doing bringing a _house elf_ here!? I'm muggleborn, you know how the Ministry reacts to any magic near us during the summer!"

"Dobby already has orders not to do any magic while we're here unless it's an emergency, and I thought Des might like to meet a magical who wasn't a witch or wizard." Harry replied nonplussed, still smiling.

"Please stop calling my mother that, even if it's just to get a rise the thought of you flirting with her makes my head hurt- and what did you mean by order?"

"Who said it's just to get a rise? You came by your looks honestly, and she's still young." It was genuinely surprising that Hermione's answering look didn't do something nasty to him.

"My father has a shotgun." Harry smiled smugly.

"I have a house elf." Memories of Kreacher leading the elves of Hogwarts in a battle charge stopped her thoughts for a second as she acknowledged that was probably a valid counter, then focused.

"And what, exactly, did you mean by 'having a house elf'?"

Harry immediately put his hands up. "Before you disembowel me with a soup spoon, there really _is_ a good reason for bonding Dobby. Well, besides his fanatical devotion to me and to raise your blood pressure." Hermione's hair was began a reasonable impression of Medusa's. "I needed a power source for the blood protections mum cast on me, and with the bond allowing Dobby to access his full reservoir he's actually _more_ powerful than he was before."

"A powerful _slave_ , Harry. A thinking being locked into absolute servitude."

"One ordered to tell me if he ever wishes to be free, or if any order makes him uncomfortable in any way." Hermione's jaw snapped shut as she considered that.

"He's been brainwashed." She said stubbornly.

"He needs magic to survive." Harry rejoindered

"And he can get that from any magical location, he doesn't need a bond." Part of her knew she was being mulish, but she just couldn't seem to help herself. House Elf bondage twigged just about every sense of injustice she had.

"But he _wants_ one." Harry held up a hand to forestall her inevitable response. "I know they're culturally pushed towards that mindset, but I'm also helping to educate him. I want him to have a true choice just as much as you do, but as he is now the lack of a bond makes him extremely embarrassed and ashamed. If, after he learns more about the world, he wants to be free? He's already been ordered to tell me. If he wants to stay?" Harry looked her in the eye "You can't say you want him to be free to make his own choices, and then tell him he can't choose the bond. You're not a hypocrite."

Hermione stared at him, expression inscrutable, for several minutes before huffing unhappily and looking at the ceiling.

"I hate it when I'm wrong, you know." There was just the tiniest quirk of her lips as she spoke.

"That's why I let you be right most of the time." Harry said impishly. "Besides, coming up with ways to be wrong is a good outlet for my creativity." Hermione flicked his shoulder and laughed as he mimed pain, marveling at how easily her smile resurfaced.

"Fool." She said fondly as she held out a hand. "We need to get back before Dobby convinces my mother to let him clean the whole house." Harry allowed her to drag him back into the entryway, bumping into her when she came to an abrupt stop.

"What in Morgana's name…" Harry peered past her and immediately leaned against her, laughing. Hermione, her expression a mask of incredulous horror, tried to parse the scene before her: Her mother, dressed in something similar to a court jester's outfit a la the Mad Hatter, was trying desperately to corral Dobby. The house elf was dressed in a wedding dress complete with train and white lace frills, but what was making him so hard to catch was the constant hiccups. Each hiccup caused the diminutive elf to emit a stream of iridescent bubbles that catapulted him around the room, the erratic motion sending him careening away from her mother at random intervals.

"Mum! What happened?"

Before her mother could say anything Dobby noticed their presence for the first time and looked at her blearily.

"Ish Mashtr Harry Poster and his Mineny." The hiccups stopped momentarily, but he was still listing dangerously to the side. "Dobby ish-" He shook his head and tried to refocus, then straightened as if struck by a revelation. "Dobby ish be missing..mashing?" He frowned in confusion before the empty teacup in his hand caught his eye, and he raised it above his head. "Dobby be _making_ youse tea!"

The gravitas the little guy put into his proclamation lasted for all of a second before his eyes fluttered closed and he slumped to the ground, snoring loudly. There was a moment of complete stillness as the three conscious inhabitants looked first at Dobby, then each other. Harry's incompletely-suppressed snicker finally broke the spell enough for Hermione to focus on her mother, still clad in her multicolored monstrosity.

"What happened to him? He looked like he was just coming off a night at the pub!"

"I don't know!" Her mother said, still in shock. "When you two went off to talk I made him a cup of tea, but you know me. There was barely a drop of brandy in there, just enough to give flavor!"

Harry, snickers still breaking through at odd moments, nodded at Dobby. "House elves have _ridiculously_ low tolerance. Seriously, they get pissed off of one butterbeer." He paused as he suppressed another bout of laughter. "Although Dobby might be a lightweight, even for an elf."

A particularly loud snore punctuated Harry's assessment and drew their attention back to Dobby, who now had a bubble nearly the size of his head growing from his mouth. They watched for a second as the fragile construct grew to the size of a beach ball and then, with a sound that she felt in her magic more than with her ears, popped. Instantly the room was back in order, the damage from Dobby's drunken shenanigans erased, and her mother was once again back to her normal self just in time to jump as an owl carrying an official-looking envelope pecked at the window.

"Aaand there's the warning for underage magic." Hermione sent a glare at Harry, who looked apologetic.

"Don't worry, I'll get it taken care of." He said in a conciliatory tone. At this point in time he was still the 'Savior' of the wizarding world, riding high off the defeat of another dastardly monster in the form of Slytherin's basilisk. Getting something like an underage magic warning would be child's play. Harry snorted at the unintentional word play even as Hermione gave him an exasperated look, and neither noticed Hermione's mother staring at the comatose elf.

"So...are we just going to leave him there?" She finally asked.

"We might as well." Harry said slowly. "He's not blocking the door, and they tend to sober up fast, though nowhere near as fast as they get drunk." A snore from Dobby punctuated his words. "Give him ten or fifteen minutes and he'll bounce right back."

Des gave him a suspicious look but made no move to relocate Dobby, instead heading towards the kitchen.

"I think that's my cue to leave. Normally I'd tease a bit about lack of supervision, but after... _that_ , I think I need a drink." She walked out of the room, muttering about 'crazy lightweights' the whole time, which finally gave Hermione a chance to regain her equilibrium. She led Harry over to the same couch they'd used last time he'd come over, and the two sat in silence.

"So" Hermione said, clearing her throat. "What have you been up to for the last few days? Besides Dobby and the blood magic, of course." If anything, Harry seemed to still even more. His eyes took on a sunken look, and he clutched Hermione's hand like a lifeline as he took a deep breath and spoke.

"I didn't mean to be away so long." He said, giving her a small apologetic smile. "After I bonded Dobby we did some business with Gringotts, a little shopping in Knockturn. I planned to come see you yesterday, but-" he gripped her hand hard enough to hurt. "I saw her."

Hermione frowned at the almost whispered words. "Who?"

"Luna"

Suddenly Hermione was gripping his hand just as tight.

"She-she was bound to show up some time, right? I mean, that's the whole point of coming here." She said haltingly.

"I know, but-" Harry turned to face her, and the sunken expression shifted to something intense "she was just there, walking down the Alley without a care and...and she was _whole_."

' _Ah'_ Hermione thought silently. Luna was a _unique_ person, for both of them. After they defeated Voldemort things had changed for them. People practically bowed in the street, and it felt like they weren't _allowed_ purely mortal things like doubts and fears. With Ron on the outs and Hermione still reeling from the loss of her parents, Luna had taken it upon herself to try and cheer her and Harry up. She'd shown the same loyalty then as when she followed Harry to the Department of Mysteries, giving them someone slightly removed that they could just be themselves around. It was a precious gift, but the more time they spent around the airy blonde the more they realized just how badly her time in the Malfoy's dungeon had affected her. Dark spaces terrified her, and later on they found out her penchant for finding out-of-the-way places for the three of them (and sometimes Neville) to relax wasn't just altruism. She couldn't stand crowds, could barely stand for someone besides their small group to so much as touch her without a panic attack. For someone like Harry, who she knew had intimate knowledge of the cruelty humans could heap on each other, watching someone he'd come to think of as a close friend suffer like that was terrible. For him to see her now, walking down Diagon Alley without fear, without panic…

Hermione let go of Harry's hand and pulled him into a bone-crushing hug, tears pricking the corner of eyes. "She's fine. Luna's fine." She repeated the mantra for several minutes as she held him, then leaned back and wiped her eyes. "You know, that makes the whole trip worthwhile by itself."

"It does" Harry replied with a slightly-damp smile. "And if I have anything to say about it, she'll never go near that hellhole."

"If _we_ have anything to say about it, Harry." Hermione corrected gently, earning herself a grateful look.

"If we have anything to say about it." He agreed, then looked down nervously. "Speaking of that…" Instantly Hermione was suspicious.

"You've got that look again" She narrowed her eyes, but instead of making a pithy quip like she expected he looked at her without a trace of humor.

"If I had a way to uncover a treasure trove of tactical information on the Ministry, the Death Munchers, and lost magical lore, would you help me access it? Even if it involved some borderline-dark magic?"

Hermione's first instinct was to say yes, and then try to badger him until he explained so she could convince him it was a bad idea. Harry had a habit of running away with ideas and not considering the consequences, but the way he was looking at her… "What kind of borderline-dark magic?"

"Soul magic" She grimaced. Despite her obsessive hunger for knowledge, she found soul magic _distasteful_. Maybe it was because of the Horcruxes, maybe it was that so much of it involved hurting other people, but the whole discipline left her feeling unclean. "And how, exactly, is soul magic going to get us this information?"

Instead of answering, Harry brushed the hair from his forehead and tapped his scar lightly. Hermione frowned in confusion for a few seconds, then her eyes opened wide as saucers. She gaped, momentarily shocked at the sheer audacity of his plan; then the memory of Hagrid carrying Harry's limp body back to Hogwarts surfaced, and she felt dark satisfaction.

"In that case I'd be happy to help." She said with a vicious smile. ' _Turnabout is fair play, right?'_

* * *

Dobby woke to the sound of his master's voice, the low tones barely audible over the pounding in his head. For a brief moment all Dobby could feel was unending shame: to become drunk was bad enough, but to do so in front of _Master Harry?_ If he hadn't been explicitly forbidden from punishing himself he would have ironed his hands _and_ his feet. As it was, he found some absolution in the vicious hangover.

Like any good elf, even as he wallowed in shame he kept one ear on his master, and what he heard gave him an idea on how to make up for his shame: his master was planning something, something that needed a number of rare ingredients and a ritual circle. Dobby didn't know how to make a ritual circle, but he _did_ know where former Bad Master had kept his most valuable things… Yes, that was it. He would find these things for Master Harry Potter and his Mione, and maybe then he could erase the shame he was feeling! But first- first he needed his head to stop spinning.


End file.
